Genesis 12:10

ABRAM IN EGYPT, Genesis 12:10-20.

10. Famine in the land Famine comes on him in the land of promise, and thus his faith is sorely tried . Not only were idolaters in possession of the ground on which he pitched his tents, but famine comes also . Canaan is watered by periodic rains; when they fail the ground dries up, and scarcity becomes no uncommon event . But Egypt, being watered by the regular overflow of the Nile, which was utilized by artificial irrigation, was rarely afflicted with famine, although when it did occur it was terribly destructive . Egypt was the granary of the adjacent nations in times of want . But Abram went there only to sojourn ( גור ) till the famine was passed, not to dwell there . Abram passes down through the desert, as Jacob and his sons did afterwards for a similar cause to go down into Egypt . Abram, Israel, and the promised Seed fled before calamity through the same desert into the same land of refuge, sojourned there awhile amid its idolatrous civilization, its massive gods and temples, and then returned to Canaan three advancing dispensations and divine manifestations which broke upon the world from this mysterious land, that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by the prophet, “I… called my son out of Egypt.” Hosea 11:1.